This technical note focuses on the Austrian banking system that exhibits considerable resilience against shocks determined by stress tests. The main sources of risk lie in the credit risk arising from exposures to Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe (CESE) and the Commonwealth of...

Insurance regulation and supervision is of a high standard, and most of the enhancements suggested have been put in place. Further enhancements will be required, in the context of the forthcoming introduction of Solvency II requirements, in such areas as the frequency of onsite inspections, the...

This paper reviews the Financial System Stability Assessment Update on the Philippines. The assessment reveals that the banking sector has been strengthened considerably since the Asian crisis of the late 1990s and today appears generally resilient to a broad range of macroeconomic risks. The...

This report presents a Detailed Assessment of the Observance of the Insurance Core Principles Report on Jersey. Other than the international business, most cover is obtained from insurers based overseas by the large insurance broker community on the island. There is no ombudsman and no...

Stress testing (ST) was undertaken as part of the Guernsey Financial sector assessment Program (FSAP) Update in order to assess the resilience of the Guernsey financial system to a variety of potential strains. The approach taken was a simulation of the effect of a potential double-dip recession...

Insurance regulation in South Africa is sound and takes a thorough approach to regulation, recognizes the scale and development of the market, and the need for effective market conduct as prudential regulation. There are particular challenges in improving standards of market conduct, in both...

Why do many households remain exposed to large exogenous sources of non-systematic income risk? We use a series of randomized field experiments in rural India to test the importance of price and non-price factors in the adoption of an innovative rainfall insurance product. Demand is...

This assessment of the Basel Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision has been completed as part of the IMF Offshore Financial Center (OFC) assessment program. First, the assessment benchmarks the current state of banking supervision, recognizing that there have been extensive changes...

This technical note examines investment opportunities for pension funds in Kazakhstan. It puts forward policy alternatives that could lead to improved management of pension fund assets in Kazakhstan. The note emphasizes prudence in the management of pension assets, given the social and fiscal...